Ceilidh

Michael Zey
futurist3000@aol.com

How can NASA balance science and exploration? For exploration, we should acknowledge that humans have little more to learn in low earth orbit. NASA should satisfy our international commitments by bringing the international space station to a minimum level of completion as soon as possible and then move onto more important business. Let Virgin Galactic offer private harbor tours to rich tourists. We must leave the harbor and venture again into the "blue water" of deep space. Following President Bush's post-Columbia vision for space exploration and under Michael Griffin's leadership, NASA has started down this path, but long-term congressional support will be critical to this expensive undertaking and the continuing problems with a fragile, aging space shuttle fleet give great urgency to the identification of a new approach.

For space science, the science community, working with NASA and through the National Academy, has laid out programs that will search for habitable environments on Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa, look for potentially life-bearing planets orbiting nearby stars, identify the first galaxies forming after the Big Bang, and study the birthplaces of the first black holes. In today's difficult budget environment not all new science projects will be affordable and not all existing projects can be funded indefinitely into the future. Not if we are to gain the most important new capabilities. Continual prioritization of scientific goals, careful selection and management of projects of appropriate size to ensure a continuous flow of new ideas, and competition between talented teams of scientists and engineers will ensure the continuation of the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Rovers.

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The fact that the space shuttle Discovery's external Tank continues to shed large pieces of insulating foam shows that the conditions that led to the Columbia tragedy have not been completely eliminated. Fortunately, there is no indication of any threat to Discovery itself, but the problem serves to highlight the risks inherent to human spaceflight. As NASA engineers work to understand the implications of this recurring problem, NASA and the nation must debate how to balance the nation's space program in the longer-term context of its two main goals: science and exploration.

Many scientists are worried that they will be forced to pay the price of delayed or canceled missions for a renewed commitment to human exploration and the ever more pressing need for a new, human- rated space vehicle to replace the shuttle. However, we must recognize that the dichotomy between science and exploration is a false one: the best science is exploration and true exploration builds on the best science. In 1767, the British government sent Captain Cook and scientist Joseph Banks to Tahiti for reasons of astronomical research, exploration, and empire. In 1969, the United States achieved a similar milestone for equally mixed reasons when we landed a practicing geologist, Harrison Schmitt, on the moon to explore its surface. A successful space program will support both science and exploration.

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In the past decade, robotic spacecraft and telescopes have been our primary vehicles of exploration. American, European, Canadian and Japanese scientists and engineers, working together or in friendly competition, have forged modern technology into extensions of our human senses to let us investigate the planets and moons in our own and other planetary systems. With our cameras on landers and rovers we see rocks and river basins on Mars and Saturn's moon Titan; with the Spitzer telescope we sense the heat of another Jupiter orbiting its parent star; with the microphone on the Huygens lander we hear the sounds of the alien world Titan; with our remote handling tools, spectrometers, and chromatographs we bring the modern analogues of touch, taste and smell to chemical analyses of planetary soils and even of planets orbiting other stars.

Even if the applications of this research are not immediate, the questions are profound and long-standing, touching on the birth, life, and death of the universe, as well as on the creation, evolution and ultimate fate of life. Is life an imperative of the laws of physics and chemistry? Is the universe habitable by chance or design? Does the universe teem with life or are we alone? These are debates of science, of philosophy, and of belief stretching back more than 2,400 years as suggested by a quote from the Greek philosopher Epicurus (circa 300 BC): "There are infinite worlds both like and unlike this world of ours. . . . We must believe that in all worlds there are living creatures and plants and other things we see in this world." We can now reframe this debate with new facts using 21st century technology. The importance of these questions and the excitement of discovery creates and nourishes curious minds. Watching the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo launches inspired the career choices of many of today's scientists and engineers. The 12 billion hits on the Mars Rover Web sites suggest that today's space science results are doing the same for the next generation.

While robotic space science has produced glorious results (and a few inglorious debacles) over the past decade, human spaceflight has languished without clear goals. If you think of the space shuttle as a tugboat in the harbor of low-earth orbit, then the international space station is a man-made island built in the middle of the harbor for want of a better destination for the tugboat. While both the shuttle and the space station are wonderful engineering accomplishments, no one can really explain why they were built other than to keep the human spaceflight program alive while waiting for something better to happen. Unfortunately, instead, while we were waiting, something worse happened: 14 astronauts died in two horrible shuttle accidents. While the skill and courage of our astronauts is beyond measure, the tasks we have given them are not worthy of the risks they bear with each launch and each descent.

It is valid to question whether humans should go into in space at all. Instead of indulging our romantic notions of Star Wars, why not just send R2-D2 and C3PO? Then, if a mission fails, a few review boards will investigate the technical reasons for the failure, but no lives would be lost and no bereft families would need a president's consolation. But the urge to explore has defined humanity for tens of thousands of years as we migrated from continent to continent, outward from Africa to Europe, Polynesia and the Americas. In "Guns, Germs and Steel," Jared Diamond describes an atavistic urge to go over the next mountain range or beyond the ocean's horizon, to move from where we are to where we might be. The modern expression of these urges leads to our search for water and life on Mars, to the search for habitable planets orbiting other stars.

We will first expand our horizons robotically because it is cheapest and safest, but when it becomes possible, we will eventually expand humanity's physical presence to the only other planet capable of supporting life as we know it, Mars. This exploration will not be cheap. It certainly will not be risk-free and it will not happen soon. But once we have used our robotic scouts to identify interesting places to visit -- e.g., geothermal hot spots where liquid water might be found or recently discovered sites of methane gas -- we will ultimately send human scouts to continue a migration that started 100,000 years ago.

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How can NASA balance science and exploration? For exploration, we should acknowledge that humans have little more to learn in low earth orbit. NASA should satisfy our international commitments by bringing the international space station to a minimum level of completion as soon as possible and then move onto more important business. Let Virgin Galactic offer private harbor tours to rich tourists. We must leave the harbor and venture again into the "blue water" of deep space. Following President Bush's post-Columbia vision for space exploration and under Michael Griffin's leadership, NASA has started down this path, but long-term congressional support will be critical to this expensive undertaking and the continuing problems with a fragile, aging space shuttle fleet give great urgency to the identification of a new approach.

For space science, the science community, working with NASA and through the National Academy, has laid out programs that will search for habitable environments on Mars and Jupiter's moon Europa, look for potentially life-bearing planets orbiting nearby stars, identify the first galaxies forming after the Big Bang, and study the birthplaces of the first black holes. In today's difficult budget environment not all new science projects will be affordable and not all existing projects can be funded indefinitely into the future. Not if we are to gain the most important new capabilities. Continual prioritization of scientific goals, careful selection and management of projects of appropriate size to ensure a continuous flow of new ideas, and competition between talented teams of scientists and engineers will ensure the continuation of the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Mars Rovers.

If, in the difficult debates over what to do next and what to give up, we are guided by a critical self-examination to ensure that we are addressing the most pressing scientific questions and daring the most audacious goals in human exploration, then we will convince our fellow citizens that our efforts are worthy of their continued support.

Congratulations to Discovery, and God speed you home.

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Mr. Beichman is an astronomer and the executive director of the Michelson Science Center at the California Institute of Technology.

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